BBH PUTS LIMIT ON BBH UNLIMITED

News, 04 August 2000

BBH Unlimited, the ‘total communications’ wing of London creative shop Bartle Bogle Hegarty is to close and integrate with its parent shop just two years after its launch.

The rationale, according to BBH, is the need to extend its new media skills in line with today’s digital marketing environment. But according to “industry sources”, the closure is evidence that BBH is too small to carry an "agency within an agency".

Unlimited was set-up in 1998 under managing director Steve Kershaw to provide advertising, direct marketing and sales promotion under one roof, since when it has amassed around £40 million in annual billings and forty clients of the ilk of Audi, Bank of Scotland, Early Learning Centre and Swinton Insurance.

But, according to CampaignLive’s phantasmagoric “industry sources”, the shut-down stems from Unlimited being treated as the “poor relation” of its parent agency.

According to Kershaw, there will be no redundancies and over fifty staff will transfer to Bartle Bogle Hegarty, while Kershaw himself moves to a new role as BBH global marketing director. He will be responsible for growing international business and developing the agency’s ventures in the US and Singapore.

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